Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
Arlington, Virginia
Dr. Emanuela Peraya pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, one of those chain ones that were all the same. Didn’t matter where in the world you were, the room would look like all the other rooms.
It figured that Kraus would pick this nondescript spot to speak with her, even going so far as to order her to leave all electronics in the car.
She brought her keys, leaving her purse under the passenger seat so it was out of sight of would-be thieves. Even in times of stress, a woman had to guard her personal security.
The entrance doors parted, sliding back to grant her entry.
Behind the desk, the heavyset Hispanic woman with fabulous lashes didn’t even look up from her computer.
Emanuela spotted a single man reading a newspaper over where breakfast would be served, if she stayed here long enough.
Who knew where the night would lead—after they settled everything there was to discuss.
She took the elevator up and found room 224 at the end of the hall.
Emanuela knocked once, and Kraus opened the door for her. She waited until it was closed before she set her keys on the TV unit. There was barely enough space to walk around between the two double beds, and the screen displaying hotel amenities.
Kraus stayed by the door, facing her now.
“What?” Emanuela hadn’t come here only for him to be silent. “You look like your cat was run over.”
“You think my problems are that pedestrian?”
“No, I don’t imagine they are.” She brushed back a couple of loose strands of hair from her temple. “But they’re likely also more than classified.”
He broke away from the door and went to a brown paper bag behind her, on the desk. “Care for a drink?”
“Just tell me what this is.” She sat on the edge of the bed and slid off her shoes because they’d been pinching her toes all day. “You said you wanted to talk.”
Kraus brought over a hotel paper cup, half filled with the Macallan he’d brought.
“Fine.” She took the cup. “Just one. There’s far too much to sort out for us to get distracted by drinks and…the rest of it.”
Kraus didn’t take the bait, something he’d have done if he wanted to make use of the bed. Maybe that ship had sailed, and she should let it rest. Quit feeling so sorry for herself. So lonely. It was only desperation that had landed her in his arms before. She didn’t need to be desperate again now.
He held out his cup. “Now that you’re here, I’m not in so much of a hurry.”
“Maybe we should drink to answers.” She tapped hers against it.
Kraus leaned on the edge of the TV unit and sipped first. “You saw the report on Simon’s killer. He was unidentified. No one in the world knows who the guy is. It’s like his existence was completely erased.”
Alarm bells of instinct rang in her mind—ones she’d honed over thirty years working in the field of psychology. He’s lying.
“We have absolutely no way of identifying him,” Emanuela said. “No prints found in the house. No DNA.” She’d shared the police reports with him. “They have no way to trace the specific gun used to kill him.” She shrugged. “So what now?”
“Assuming there’s any credence to the idea that our system has a worm in it, some kind of AI that infiltrated the CIA network we use.”
Her contact at the NSA had assured her there was no way it could get into the wider network. With the way they siloed information, it was impossible to get everything.
However, the reality that they’d been attacked by an entity who seemed content to simply watch everything they were doing couldn’t be denied.
“There was nothing in the audit to indicate Simon had been working against us, or give a clue why he was killed.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It makes no sense.”
“The police investigation is going to go cold sooner or later.”
“We could loop in the FBI,” she said. “See what they can come up with?”
“Better to task a few of our agents with an internal investigation. But that seems far too much like admitting we can’t handle this ourselves.”
Not the first time she’d considered the hubris in his personality. For better or worse, it made him a decent division chief.
“Have you found any proof at all that there’s a worm in our system?” Emanuela sipped her drink. “Because even the threat of a breach has to be reported. We can’t simply ignore it and hope the problem goes away.”
“Do you have proof?” Kraus shrugged. “Perhaps it was simply a misdirect, designed to have us chasing our tails. Probably while Division Zero undertakes some mission they’d rather we didn’t know about.” He huffed. “I still think the killer could be one of them.”
Emanuela sighed. “Fine, I contacted a colleague in the NSA.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Why would you be sorry?” She shook her head.
“I don’t understand. There’s a very real threat out there, Thomas.
We’ve got a new Division Zero team to spool up for missions, and unnamed operatives wandering around murdering our staff!
This is a serious problem. It should be a full-scale internal investigation. Why are you stonewalling—”
He dropped his cup and reached for her, grabbing her neck with his bare hands.
Emanuela’s paper cup fell from her fingers. She clawed at his arms, his fingers. Gasping for breath and trying to think through the panic.
“I’m sorry that it came to this.” He spoke slowly, in a measured tone with zero emotion. As if her life and her death meant nothing to him. “I’m sorry that you couldn’t leave it alone.”
All she heard after that was the strangled cry from her lips. Thomas, how could you?
The door flung open so hard it hit the wall.
Thomas startled, reacting by moving back a fraction and loosening his grip, and Emanuela heard twin pops. Suppressed gunfire.
Her boss fell back, blood seeping across the front of his shirt as he hit the carpet.
Emanuela let out a choked cry, panic eclipsing everything.
The door swung shut, and she realized the shooter had closed her in here with him and the dead body. She would be next!
She scrambled back and tumbled off the bed onto the strip of carpet between it and the wall, crying out.
“You’re welcome.” The man stood by the TV, breathing hard. “We don’t have much time. I need to clean up, and you have to pull yourself together so you can leave calmly without drawing any attention to yourself.”
“Who…” She sat up. “Who are you?”
“So you can call the FBI about me, too?”
She gasped. “You were listening?”
“Enough to know Kraus didn’t like what he heard. He’s the one in the office who allowed the worm in, by the way. He’s the one under Earthnet’s thumb. Again, you’re welcome.” The shooter tucked the gun out of sight and flexed his fingers, wearing what looked like leather gloves.
He had light-brown hair, and pale skin. A prominent nose that had been broken before and set with a scar.
“How am I supposed to explain this?”
“You aren’t.” He came over and held out a hand. “You don’t talk about it. You have no idea what happened to Kraus, or why he won’t show up for work tomorrow. You were never here.”
She took his hand, and he hauled her up so fast she yelped.
“After you take care of the worm in the CIA system, you’re gonna call Noah Rourke and ask him for assistance tackling the issue of Earthnet and what they’re up to. Because we all have a serious problem when it comes to them.”
She frowned. “You know about Division Zero?”
He pressed his lips together.
She’d never been so hungry for someone to be straightforward and honest in her life. Working for the CIA had her tangled up in knots until she wanted to scream. “I’m so tired of the lies. The subterfuge.”
“You picked the wrong line of work, lady.”
“I’m a psychologist.”
“I think you got this one wrong.” He motioned to Kraus. “You gonna take my advice, or are you going to be a problem to me like he was?”
So she could end up with two bullets in her chest? Problem was, if she agreed to do what this man said, she would end up owing him.
He continued, “You wanna know what I want?”
Emanuela nodded.
“You might make a decent division chief after all.”
Emanuela liked the sound of that so much she squared her shoulders. “Well? What do you want?”
He almost smiled. “US Army Colonel Alan Montrose. Everything you can get me on him. Everyone he’s connected to, by blood or otherwise, and his current location. And I want it in an hour.”
“That’s all?”
“For starters at least.” He brought over her keys. “And you can call me Ice.”